


In Our Next Forever

by TundrainAfrica



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Levihan Centric, Post-Canon, Reincarnation, Sad with a Happy Ending, Shingeki no Kyojin Chapter 138: A Long Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 23:53:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30080253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TundrainAfrica/pseuds/TundrainAfrica
Summary: “But that’s what you do when you love someone right? You take risks, you hope and you trust that the pain gets you somewhere.” Mikasa said. She knew the pain well, Levi had seen what a lost love had done to her through the years and he thought it at least worth a good listen and a good catalyst for reflection.“And if the pain doesn’t get us anywhere, we just brace ourselves for it, we take it like a soldier, and we just pray that things will get better after that.”“Love makes people idiots huh?”Levi shrugged. “Sometimes being an idiot is the most loving thing we can do.”Post Chapter 138, Levi outlives Hange and the two meet in the next life.
Relationships: Levi Ackerman/Hange Zoë, Mikasa Ackerman/Eren Yeager
Comments: 10
Kudos: 109
Collections: Tumblr Prompts and Oneshots (Tundrainafrica)





	In Our Next Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hi. promise us you’ll never make a levihan fic in this au. /sets self on fire for trying to imagine levihan in this kind of story/
> 
> Hi Anon, I still took the challenge coz the music video was just beautiful :')
> 
> Special thanks to someonestolemyshoes for looking through this fic. Btw, if you haven't yet, read her fics they're godly.

_I’ve been having a lot of dreams._

_And everytime I wake up. I feel like I’m carrying the grief of a lost love I have yet to find._

_Did I forget something?_

_Perhaps I dropped something along the way._

_There is a sudden lightness on my shoulders I don’t understand._

_So light, it hurts._

* * *

“What do you dream of?”

“You.” The answer rolled out of Levi’s tongue very naturally.

Only a second after though, the fears, the doubts and the general uncertainties which came out with falling so easily for someone over the internet caught up to him.

_How can it be me?_

_You’ve only ever talked to me over video call?_

_You’ve only ever talked to me over the phone?_

_You’ve only ever exchanged messages with me?_

Although he was certain that it wasn’t in Hange’s personality to do any of that, he still braced himself for a worst case scenario, mockery, and a somewhat less worse case, hesitant acceptance.

Self consciousness was a monster that clung to everyone, for some it was a monster, while for others it was a speck of dust. For the majority though, it was a shapeshifter. Levi was sure he had experienced it as a speck of dust once. Yet then, when he had covered a little too many bases, when he broke so wildly out of his comfort zone for her, an internet friend, a penpal and eventually, a partner. When he had set aside all other romantic leads for that voice on the phone, that face on the screen, it nagged at him.

 _You’re going crazy._ It would tell him. Especially during those mornings after a long night of dreaming.

In the dreams, he saw her face too clearly, he heard her voice raw and organic. She had a scent, of a little too much sweat and of too little soap for his fastidious side to have ever been comfortable. In his dreams, he felt her touch as something gentle yet firm.

And he swore it was real. He swore it was a memory of something real. It was too vivid. It was too easily recalled and imagined. And if he tried hard enough, he was sure he could articulate it.

Dreams couldn’t create anything that has never been a memory though. Or so that was what he was told.

At that moment, when he said those words, when he channeled every single sensation to that one moment, to have that answer so easily pulled out of him and into the dead space of his almost empty bedroom, Hange was merely a face on a screen, a voice from a speaker.

But faces on screens and voices from speakers had the potential to speak of other worlds, infinities, unfathomable possibilities. The pixels on the screen that made up her face and the voice coming from the speaker, accompanied by shoddily hidden cracks and static, still managed to preserve at least the glimmer in her eyes and the melodious yet gentle caress in her voice.

With that, she still had a fair control of his emotions, his thoughts and his dreams.

But it wasn’t like Hange to abuse it. And she didn’t.

_What do you dream of?_

_You._

Hange’s lips curled up into a smile, the glimmer in her eyes unyielding. “What do we do in those dreams?”

* * *

Green was a color of life. Yet, the dimness around him, reminiscent of a dark night, managed to suck out even the green from the trees, the grass and the bushes around him.

Yet, if Levi’s eyes weren’t deceiving him then, he was sure the vegetation was still very green.

So it wasn’t a normal night. But when have nights ever been so glaringly unordinary that they suck everything around them?

The night his mother died. The night after Isabel and Farlan died The night after his squad died. The night after Erwin died.

And maybe the night after _she_ died. Levi only realized then, it was the first night since she died. That should have been expected. Then why was he still so taken aback? Why was he frozen in place by such a view when he had experienced it so many times before already?

He only had to step forward to understand. Back then, with every other death he witnessed, grief was something that weighed heavily on him, something that never really left, only getting heavier with every death.

In the path though, everything had a dark and heavy tinge to it. Ironically, he was completely light. As if his body wanted to take advantage of that bout of freedom--- for god knows how long it would last. Levi only quickened his strides, aiming for that one gap between the trees, a little less dim than the rest.

A few feet later, the forest opened up into a glade. Another few feet from the entrance of the glade was a river and a bridge so conveniently and neatly placed at the center, a comforting view for someone with an eye for even the slightest blemish or the slightest stain.

The bridge was beautiful. It was comforting, it gave him some direction in the dimness and the chaos that came with the darkness. His first instinct as someone who had lived his life taking and fulfilling orders was to take the winding path in front of him that led up to the bridge.

And Levi was already moving, one step at a time, indulging his meticulous nature by refusing to skirt the edges of the winding cobblestone path.

The constant flitting between left and right, as he followed the path very obediently, had made it difficult to see it at first. As he approached though, it became something he could not ignore the existence of.

The bridge was barricaded. Levi had half the mind to just go around that barricade until he got closer, close enough to confirm that the barricade was a _someone._

That ‘someone’ sat cross legged at the foot of the bridge, elbow on one knee, resting her chin on her hand.

“You can’t pass,” she said, in an all too familiar voice, a voice Levi recognized almost instantly for god knows, how long he had been looking for it while painfully aware he might never hear it again.

“Hange?” Just in case his ears had been deceiving him.

Hange nodded. ”It’s me,” she whispered.

That was all the confirmation Levi needed, for the night to come alive. For Levi to have noticed the stars behind him, the weak lights that remained resilient despite the deadness that had blanketed the forest since he first came to.

The forest then and there was much like the forest only a day and a night ago when it had just been him and her.

 _Why don’t we just live here together? Right Levi?_ She had said those words then, in the forest.

As he stared back at her, almost expectantly, Hange’s gaze was unwavering. It was hard, firm yet it resonated warmth and concern, just like her to have managed such a look. The look screamed other words though, far from any invitation to live alone just the two of them.

There was no desire in her eyes at all, She was far from relaxed, far from dreaming. And Levi found himself looking around him, wondering what had her so tense at that moment.

The night was silent. That was when Levi noticed, the forest had been eerily silent as well, devoid of any of the animal cries and the rustle of leaves.

 _Was that what had her tense? Nervous?_ “You don’t want me to cross?” Levi asked. “We can cross _together._ ” Levi deliberately mimicked Hange’s tone with that last word, a subtle reminder of her own invitation days back.

Hange seemed to have gotten the message, very much visible in the flicker of recognition in her cold hard gaze. She shook her head. “You’re not crossing.”

“Why?”

“It’s not your time yet.”

Hange chose that moment to stand up. Levi had instinctively followed her gaze. He was close enough to the bridge and he had a good angle to observe it closely from behind her.

The bridge stretched out much farther than the eye can see. Levi had to suspend his disbelief to even process that it could have possibly led to nowhere, that the nothingness behind Hange was holding it up. And as Levi walked ahead, he started to realize the water wasn’t water. His own experiences and his own expectations had only tricked him into seeing water.

It was too black, it was too empty and before Levi could even go closer to take a better look, something pulled him back.

“I told you, don’t cross the bridge.”

“Why not?”

“You still have something to return to. Don’t waste it,” Hange said. “Go back the way you came.”

“Into the woods? Again?”

“Yes, go back.” Hange nodded.

“What about you?”

She walked next to him and put one gentle arm around his shoulders. “I’ll walk you back.”

The walk was silent and Levi started to realize that the dark gaps in between the trees held nothing. They stopped in front of one of the gaps and Levi found himself squinting to see anything beyond it, to no avail.

“This is as far as I go,” she said.

“You’re not coming?”

“I don’t have anything to return to.”

“You don’t have to have anything to return to. I’ll cover your share.”

Hange’s gaze softened, a far cry from the stare, she gave him sitting cross legged. “I’d like that. Please do.”

“Then come with me.”

“Just because you’re covering my share, doesn’t mean I can leave.”

“Then how can I cover your share if you don’t let me.”

Hange hugged him. “Live a long life.”

“What…”

“Cover my share of life. Live the life I couldn’t. ”

Before Levi could even fathom the way both conversations had merely brushed side by side yet ended up in two places at once, he found himself out of breath, his stomach turning. He was falling, waiting for the pain of impact for what felt like an eternity.

The pain didn’t come as an impact like he would have expected. The pain came with mangled insides, missing fingers and the burning sensation of stitches on his face that were a little too taut.

They came as a burning sensation in his knee and in audible yet painful gasps.

He was breathing. He was in pain. He was alive.

And the dream, that final meeting with Hange, remained a haze, a dull whisper.

“I’ll wait for you.”

* * *

“Hey, you okay?”

Levi’s eyes snapped open. “Yeah…”

“You looked like you were having a bad dream. ”

Levi didn’t answer, his face still registering the pain of that split second reaction. His wounds have long since healed but they still protested at such a subtle movement. He was sure it might just protest any movement his whole life.

Those were what scars were. His hands were never the same again. He still felt the phantom pains in his stomach from where the explosion slammed him down on the banks of the river. He walked with a slight limp, having never regained complete control of the use of his damaged limbs.

Mikasa crouched in front of him, a look of concern on her face. “I can take over handling the customers today if you’re not up to it.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s good therapy,” Levi said. Just getting up from a sitting position was still a difficult task. It was a complex balancing act, flexing the right muscles and finding the right surfaces to handle the pushes and pulls that came with getting up. The wrong moves meant a sharp pain,or tipping the chair over.

Mikasa knew that at least. And she kept a reassuring arm on his shoulder, a reminder that she could easily catch him if he made the wrong move. “I mean it,” she said.

“No,” Levi said. “This is my tea shop, My customers. My job.”

As soon as he got up, it was easy going, or as easy as moving can get with a bum knee. The voices were faint from the little room at the back of the cafe. Levi had gone back and forth too many times the past year to know exactly what to find just outside it.

The storage room opened up to the counter with the register and the pastries on the display. And just beyond that were rows and rows of seats, most unoccupied. Just outside the door, he heard more footsteps, more voices.

He only had to look at the clock to understand, an hour to lunch. The lunch crowd would be coming in soon. The teashop would be full and the lively bustle made him think of one important thing.

 _I’m alive._ Then Levi also remembered, he had to make sure to cover her share too.

* * *

The lunch crowd came and went with nothing much to ponder in between. If Levi gritted his teeth, if he took each movement as one full task, one step at a time, he could get a lot done.

And it turned out, two Ackermans were more than enough to manage a lunch crowd. Even if those two Ackermans were only half the people they would have wanted to be.

The shift from a lively bustle to a silent and empty tea shop save for one to two stragglers was quick, the contrast stark.

It had Levi wondering how something so loud and full of life could snuff out so quickly. Manning the counter, he rearranged the tea leaves. Next to him, Mikasa was observing the people coming in, approaching when needed, preparing their orders whenever else.

It had been like that for a while, just the two of them in the tea shop. Sometimes, if commander duties would allow him to help, Armin would come to visit, serve one or two customers, before his own high profile appearance caused a ruckus among the customers.

Within a few hours, the afternoon snacks crowd came, not as large as the lunch crowd. Then before it could even die out, it had morphed into a bigger monster, a dinner crowd.

The death of the dinner crowd was louder, more abrupt and strangely more painful. People had the tendency to stay a long while, until the final closing hours of midnight. An hour or so before, Mikasa would turn off half the lights and Levi would light a candle by the counter, his own contribution to the dimness of the room.

That particular night, Levi noticed, oddly enough that day, both of them were in a more somber mood than usual. Of course they had been in a somber mood since they came back from the war, but somehow that moment had been a little different.

Levi could easily trace his own somber mood to his dream just a few hours, that mysterious visitor that came and went too frequently despite the passage of time.

“Did you dream about her?” Mikasa asked.

“Yeah, I did.”

The lights were half on and the candle made its own humble contribution in the dark room; the low, flickering light only made the somber mood a little more apparent. At midnight, the sky was at its darkest and just looking out the window, Levi saw a very familiar blackness, a blackness which strangely enough, made him think of her.

And everything all at once had been a stark reminder that maybe beyond it all, there existed another world, maybe the dream hadn’t been a figment of his imagination. Maybe the celestial bodies in the sky, the illusions that came with the weak lights outside the window, held some untapped magic, told of the coming and going of the spirits and the otherworldly beings.

It convinced Levi that maybe, Mikasa saw it too. And maybe, asking was worth a shot. “Do you dream about him too?” Levi asked in return. He only realized there had been an awkward pause in between as he felt Mikasa jump from nearby.

“I do,” she said. But she said it with more firmness, with more certainty than Levi could ever muster.

He suspected, his inability to speak as firmly as he had before could have also been a remnant of his previous injuries. When living with weights too difficult to bear everyday though, he found himself a little desperate for some support. “How do you handle it?” he asked.

“I just keep living,” Mikasa answered as if the answer had been so obvious all along.

It was so obvious, Hange had told him the same thing. “Tell me something I’m not doing already,” he said.

The conversation died as quickly as it started and the two sat in silence, in the dark room. The only remnants of anything had been the squeak as Mikasa wiped the glasses clean while Levi put away the pastries on the counter.

“You know… I think I know why I can still keep going.” Mikasa spoke up.

Levi didn’t answer. They were two people of little words and they were family. Getting comfortable with each other, had been a surprisingly quick and easy task. The silence never meant awkwardness when it was alone in the room. As if they both saw the grief, the loss and the trauma of the past war in the silence and Levi was sure it was very much a shared feeling.

And comfortable with that own space they shared, Mikasa didn’t hesitate to continue that train of thought. “My dreams of Eren aren’t hazy. In my dreams, I can see him, I can hear him. I can feel his touch, I can smell him. They’re too vivid and they’re too real… That I can’t help but think, what if there really is another reality where we do get to live together…”

“In another life you mean?”

“Maybe in the next one, what if we just have to get past this one? And they’ll be waiting for us at the end.” Mikasa had a far off look on her face and when Levi followed her gaze he saw it went straight for the blackness outside the window, as if she saw something there too. He was starting to suspect that it could have been so.

“In my dreams, Hange told me to live on. She told me to live her share too,” Levi said. “I’m taking a risk here, living her share of life, even when it’s so fucking painful. She promised, she’d wait for me. What if at the end of it, there’s nothing?”

“But that’s what you do when you love someone right? You take risks, you hope and you trust that the pain gets you somewhere.” Mikasa knew the pain well, Levi had seen what a lost love had done to her through the years and he thought it at least worth a good listen and a good catalyst for reflection.

 _And what if the pain doesn’t get you anywhere?_ Levi would have wanted to ask. He found himself answering it for himself even before he could get those words out of his mouth. Of course, he would. He had always lived his life, willing himself not to regret any decision. The quiet feeling that had kept him going never did have a name.

Yet at that moment, when he found himself almost hesitating to decide for fear of regret, almost hesitating to own whatever decision he made for Hange, the quiet feeling clambered up over him, making itself known in the silence of the room.

“And if the pain doesn’t get us anywhere, we just brace ourselves for it, we take it like a soldier, and we just pray that things will get better after that.”

“Love makes people idiots huh?”

Levi shrugged. “Sometimes being an idiot is the most loving thing we can do.”

* * *

“Captain! Mikasa!”

The first few minutes after opening were usually dead and silent, save for the clattering of plates and the clinking of glasses. Armin’s voice was an extraordinary addition to the routine. His greeting was loud, it was obtrusive in the peaceful morning

Either way, the voice was warm and familiar. Being one of the only survivors of the war, regardless of how he does come, he was always a welcome addition.

“It’s been a week,” Mikasa greeted. The greeting though seemed almost accusatory.

“Work got a little busy,” Armin replied sheepishly.

“We’re still happy to see you.” Mikasa’s gaze softened and she closed in for a hug.

Levi approached from behind Mikasa and stayed a good distance away but he was sure Armin had seen his own greeting in that second where they locked eyes.

The moment Mikasa moved away, allowing Levi a good view of Armin, Levi started to understand why the blonde had seemed almost panicked with his first greeting.

In his arms was a small kitten, still small enough to fit in his two palms. Armin seemed unsure when he held the kitten out for both of them to see.

And Levi understood why. His own natural instinct had been to wrinkle his nose and furrow his brows. When he took a good look at the kitten, the chocolate brown tabby with a little too much fur sticking out in many directions at once, he found himself sympathizing at whatever ordeal had brought the kitten in front of them.

“I found her on the road,” Armin explained. “She could have gotten run over and I couldn’t leave her there… I live in an apartment in the city center and they don’t allow pets. Besides, you two have a good garden in the back so I thought…”

Mikasa was staring at him. Levi felt her expectant gaze and maybe he did get a little peek of it from his peripherals, even as his eyes were fixed on the brown cat in front of him.

The kitten had been asleep in Armin’s arms. As if she had felt Levi’s discerning gaze, she opened her left eye to reveal a greenish brown glimmer underneath. The other eye never opened and Levi started to suspect it probably never would. They locked eyes in the moment, the cat’s own good eye locked with Levi’s own.

“Bring her in,” he said.

“Wow, captain. You’re really okay with it?”

“It’s high time we had another friendly face here.”

* * *

The cat, which Levi had so uncreatively named Tea, grew quickly.

Within a year, she grew to almost four times the size of the kitten in Armin’s arms that fateful day. She was a welcome addition to their little found family. She was lively. She was playful and even when she had reached her full size, she still found ways to entertain the guests through meows in greeting, through caresses around their legs.

When there were a little too many guests, she would take her place on the counter next to Levi, and would watch the crowds as if she herself was managing the cafe. Sometimes, Levi found himself trusting the cat to watch the pastries and the register, those few moments he retired to the storage room for a quick break.

And maybe she had been good at doing her job. Strangely enough, Levi just trusted her to and he never thought too much of it.

That mindspace at least allowed Levi to study the contents of the storage room closely in the small chance that he did forget how he had organized it just a day ago.

The ingredients were lined neatly along the shelves in the storage room. With his own meticulous tendencies, Levi had the special talent for cramming them all in such a small place, yet organizing them in such a way that it would only take him less than even just a few seconds to get what he needed.

He only stayed longer because he could. Since the brown tabby outside invaded their little cafe, and when she had claimed her space next to the register as her own, she had claimed with her a lot of the responsibility that should have been split between Levi and Mikasa.

She took her place by the register, exuded her authority in ways all too familiar. She was trustworthy. She was inspiring. And in her own little way with just her presence, she provided for Levi more mind space to think, and more emotions to draw from.

Inspiration for someone who worked with spices, leaves and beans on a daily basis, came in bursts, fueled by memories of a certain someone. It came as a need to impress under the watchful gaze of the chocolate tabby cat.

And it pushed him forward, it pushed him to stand in front of the counter and take a long painful yet relieving stretch, undoing the knots that settled on his back and on his arms. He grabbed canister after canister, very aware of the taste of each one he could almost imagine them as he studied each label.

The movements were natural but at the same time, Levi wasn’t exactly sure what he was mixing.

It was Mikasa who pulled him out of the trance. “Did a customer order that?” She asked as she propped her shopping bag neatly on the counter. She looked back at the tables and chairs. There were a few customers but they all seemed engrossed in a book, their food and drinks all half consumed on the tables in front of them.

“No one ordered it.”

“Yeah, I guessed that. That’s a weird mix of ingredients.”

“Is it?” Levi asked. He studied the ingredients in front of him, the open bottle of cinnamon on the spice rack, the open jar of honey, the small sack of rock salt, the sack of coffee beans and a half squeezed lemon. They wouldn’t have been a match for anyone else. The clean freak in Levi was disturbed as well to have seen such a random mix of ingredients haphazardly strewn around him, and to be completely aware that they were all mixed into the murky drink in front of him.

“Yeah, are you trying something new?”

Levi didn’t reply immediately, his mind still trying to process such a reckless bout of actions.

As if to answer his question though, a chocolate tabby furball blocked his view of the tea. Levi pulled away to get a better angle, only to see the cat sniffing at the coffee. She never drank it, yet she never walked away.

That was when he understood. There was order to the decision, there was purpose to it. In a trance, he had forgotten about her for a second. But he never did forget for long, sometimes all he needed was for things to fall in the right places before he recalls the stored memories.

“I was thinking about what Hange would have liked,” Levi answered. “And I guess I wanted to try it out.”

“Doesn’t Hange like sweet things?” Mikasa asked.

“What makes you say that?”

“She always had her coffee with honey… so I thought.”

“She would have coffee with a hint of lemon, sometimes she’d add cinnamon. Other times she’d empty a honey jar into it,” Levi said. As he spoke, Levi was vividly remembering every morning in her office as she so recklessly dropped ingredient after ingredient into the coffee mug. He remembered the disgust, the feeling of his nose just wrinkling at the prospect of even tasting such odd cocktails. He could never remember though if Hange had ever looked nauseated at her own creations.

But he did remember one thing. “Hange didn’t necessarily like sweet things,” Levi added.

“Really?”

“Hange liked glaring tastes. She liked sweet, sour, spicy and salty all in one drink. She liked tasting how they clashed when she drank them,” Levi explained. As if to make a point, he mixed two other cups of coffee, neglecting to add the honey to the coffee in carefully-measured blobs for posterity’s sake.

The only one he ever did try was the more conservative, coffee with honey. But it explained Hange’s point too well already

Honey never really completely mixed with the coffee. Sometimes, it settled in the bottom and Hange had mentioned that was her favorite part. The last few gulps of coffee were always a violent war between sweet and bitter.

A testament to her own brash and daredevil personality. Hange always got bored a little too easily. She needed to be constantly sensing, constantly thinking and constantly feeling.

Levi handed the other cup of coffee to Mikasa. Coffee and honey really was an odd mix and Levi felt it as a stark contrast to the peaceful coffee shop during brunch time, a prelude to the lunch crowd which was soon to follow.

When he thought of Hange, a memory so embedded into something as mundane yet strange as a mixture of coffee and honey, he started to realize, Hange probably would have been bored with the type of life he and Mikasa chose to live post war.

_Would you have been disappointed?_

He only had to look back to their countless interactions to be assured that she wouldn’t have. She would have been too busy doing anything else to care.

* * *

Inspiration was a fickle thing. It came and went without ever so much as a hello or a goodbye with each passing day. It came in glimmers, small impulses that had Levi putting a little more sugar on his tea, or sometimes a little more milk or even a dash of cinnamon or a hint of lime.

When the inspiration was elsewhere, Levi would find himself enjoying his black tea or his black coffee plain and bitter as he watched the breakfast crowds so routinely morph to lunch crowds then to dinner crowds.

In his world that had shrunk to just a tea shop, and a garden in the back, there was not much reason for inspiration to stay.

Regardless though, the changes and the developments around the world were too large to have ever been stopped by a measly door to a tea shop. Prices changed. Suppliers were offering new branded tea leaves, branded coffee beans. The gossip and rumors on new inventions made their way to his small place.

He never did enjoy the new fangled television which was all the rage, all the rage enough for MIkasa to install one in the cafe. Armin and Mikasa though, liked to keep in touch with the current events.

And the changes around the world, the information on technological developments, on scientific discoveries seeped into his life so easily that Levi almost welcomed them.

The most relevant to his own little world though, had been the supplies of herbs and spices, the scientific reports on new ways to grow them, on new ways to produce seeds, to increase yield, to make the products sweeter.

And his next indelible bout of inspiration came as a need to utilize the lifeless plot of land at the back of the cafe. Weeds had taken over it but Levi only needed a few hours to empty them.

The next few hours after that didn’t feel too much like hours, they had felt like only a few minutes, before Levi realized he hadn’t been taking note of the time at all. He could have sworn, only seconds have passed as he very daintily placed the seeds from his supplier on the disturbed soil in front of him.

“I don’t even know if I’m doing this right. You probably would have done a better job,” Levi said. He was sure she wouldn’t have heard him. She was nowhere near him as far as he knew. But Hange definitely would have done a better job, she probably would have even found a way to predict the days until they sprout off the ground and until they were mature enough for harvesting.

Levi though was different. He was aware he didn’t have the penchant for memorizing scientific laws and inferring theories based on observations alone. He didn’t have the stock knowledge either to have pulled something like that off as seamlessly as Hange could have done it. He knew he would have to play it by ear.

Tea must have sensed the uncertainty and the subtle nervousness which came with doing something for the first time. She pushed herself between a crouching Levi’s legs and sat in front of him as if to get a good view of the disturbed soil.

“You’re blocking my view,” Levi said.

The cat didn’t budge and Levi found himself having to stand up and find a new spot next to the tabby. “You know, she studied a lot of plants on the side,” Levi said, making a soundboard of his new companion. “She told me… when the war ended she would have loved to study the plants outside the walls then when we went outside the walls, she even mentioned she would have wanted to study what was outside Paradis.”

Levi had seen the pictures, the shapes were reminiscent of what Hange had studied long before during her days off but the flower petals curved differently and the shapes of the leaves fell in ways almost unnatural. They could have been different species and maybe he just didn’t have the eye for it.

“She would have wanted to see this,” Levi said.

In reply, Tea stretched out in front of him, raising her tail up high as she did. She lay down in front of the seeds and if her ears hadn’t remained perked up, Levi would have guessed she was relaxing.

Levi gathered the watering can and his spade. “Hey, let’s go back inside.” He was sure she was pretending she couldn’t hear such an order but Levi never did have any power over Tea. Eventually, he gave up and went back into the cafe. She always came to his room in the evenings anyway.

At night, Tea was in his room. But as soon as the sun was up, Levi would find tea in the same spot every time right in front of the little spice garden he had set up for himself. A few minutes a day, Levi would watch her and just gape at how fixated she was on the growth of the plants.

For most people, the growth was unnoticeable unless they saw it side by side. If she were there for eight hours at a time, Levi was sure she saw something, and maybe that had been the reason she kept coming back.

When the plants had grown enough, he would see her disappear into the bushes and out again. And finally, when it was ready for picking, Levi couldn't tell. He had only noticed it for himself when she had gestured for him to follow her and when she had guided him to her own little spot, plopped down in front of him with an unignorable expectant look on her face.

“We can harvest it now?”

Tea didn’t reply but Levi only had to look at the familiar leaves that resembled too much the pictures in the front of the containers to understand that the answer was an inarguable yes.

Levi sighed. “You’re doing a better job than I am with gardening.”

* * *

The herb garden grew. Then the tea shop grew.

It became something too difficult for him or Mikasa to handle alone. On top of that, Mikasa found herself going back from her five year long retirement to help Armin with whatever work they were doing to govern Paradis.

Other people were hired to manage the teashop. People who worked much faster than Levi and a lot more efficiently. Soon enough, Levi realized he had time for other things.

But what else was there to do in his own little world which consisted of a tea shop, a storage room and a garden? As Levi soon found out though, there was a lot.

Inspiration’s entrances and exits were much louder than they have ever been before. When he was devoid of inspiration, Levi would read. When he had a little too much, he would write out poem after poem, journal entry after journal entry.

Eventually Mikasa and Armin caught on to it and soon enough, Levi was receiving paint, hand held musical instruments and journals as gifts, souvenirs from every trip to Marley. The constants have always been the books though. Mikasa and Armin never failed to visit with a book or two in hand.

_Live the life I couldn’t._

Understanding of his odd fixation on inspiration came as an unexpected jolt that shook through him, that pulled him so violently from the book he had been engrossed in only a second ago. In the book, the author told of rolling hills and beyond it, forests with creatures he couldn’t even imagine. Creatures almost indescribable that they had ended up like blank spaces in his mind as he read.

 _Live the life I couldn't live._ Living the life she couldn’t meant imagining the indescribable.

 _And if you can’t imagine it, you look for it. If it’s something you don’t know, you go out and you try to understand it._ Those words echoed so clearly in Levi’s memory, as if he had heard it more than enough times from her.

Levi had experienced too much adventure of a lifetime though and he didn’t have the penchant for adventure and the unpredictable that Hange had.

He lay back down on the bed as a wave of guilt washed through him and pushed him back down. “Did I cover your share of life? Are you happy with what I did with my life?”

The answer came in the form of inspiration. It came in a sudden hyperfixation on the sketchbooks, the paint bottles, the half filled journals lined so neatly on the shelves and on Tea propped on the sill of his bedroom window, seeming a little too focused on the busy streets below.

_Tea is probably seeing more of the world than I am._

He wasn’t seeing the developing world. He wasn’t seeing for himself the breakthroughs that came with the era of peace and the opening of Paradis.

But even in his small space, his cafe and his quick trips to the center of town, there were infinite possibilities. The world was wide but Levi had seen first hand the development of the car, the development of the trains when Hange had been there to rave on about them.

But humans were still confined to the limitations of technology. Inspiration and adventure came in the small moments, the worlds built by words, the images created by the mixing of dye and the illusions that came with the intricate coordination of sounds.

Actually living came in the freedom of letting the inspiration take over, pull him by one hand, as if to take him on a long ride to cities unreachable by even the best technology. Actually living came in accepting the otherworldly in the most mundane and routine things.

“You know what, I think I’m living a life you’d be proud of,” Levi said.

He hadn’t been outside to the port in years. He hadn’t been to Marley for much longer than that. There was no guilt in those realizations though. He had experienced more than enough of it to last a lifetime.

And he was certain, with every painting, with every journal entry, with every piece he learned, he had experienced another world. And in all of them, she was there. Because in those intimate moments where he did let the arts take over, the line between the worldly and the otherworldly blurred.

In those moments, Levi was reminded that the world wasn’t just what his five senses could process for themselves.

There were people, there were emotions, there were bonds that although completely disconnected from what people deemed real, never really cease to exist.

And maybe if Levi was patient, he would be able to experience them again.

In his remaining years, Levi absorbed in arts paintings, songs and stories. Somewhere along the way, reality blurred into dreams so easily that when Levi saw Hange again, it hadn’t felt like something worth a tearful reunion.

“You’re not gonna ask me if I’ve lived a full life?” Levi asked.

Once again, Levi was walking the winding path towards the bridge and in front of him blocking the path was Hange, like she had been in countless dreams before. “I know you did,” Hange said, seeming very certain with her reply.

“I thought you would have crossed the bridge.”

“I wanted to watch over you. So I decided to wait.” Hange put one arm around his shoulders and leaned over him, like she did many dreams before. “Are you ready to cross?”

“What happens now?” Levi stood frozen in the spot while attempting unsuccessfully to trace the parapets of the bridge to whatever end was holding it steady from the other side.

“We close our eyes, and we cross.” Hange answered.

“Do you think there’s anything on the other side?”

“Something better than this gloomy forest, I’m sure.” Hange walked ahead. She looked confident and sure and just watching her walk away had been enough for Levi to break out of that haze.

 _I haven’t seen you in decades and you don’t wanna stay here? With me?_ Even before Levi could stop himself, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “You’ll still be there right? When we cross the bridge?”

Hange shrugged. “Depends on what our next life gives us.”

“The world is big, Hange. There are a lot of people out there. We might never see each other again. You’ll forget about me. I’ll forget about you,” Levi said as he studied Hange’s unbothered look.

A smile played at the corners of Hange’s mouth and her eyes crinkled. In that quiet movement, Levi saw a flash of sadness. As quickly as it came, it disappeared, replaced by something else.

_Hope?_

“But you know Levi… Actually, you saw it with your own eyes, you should know this. Technology is progressing. Transportation is only getting more and more reliable. Even in a sea of millions of people, even if we’re reborn on different sides of the map, I’m sure we’ll be able to find each other.”

“How are you so sure?”

“They’ll make telephones and radios with pictures and videos so I can see your face while we talk. Maybe one day they’ll invent something that can send messages in seconds. And maybe one day, planes will become so fast that they can send us from one side of the world to the other in just hours.” Hange said.

Her strides towards the bridge were still optimistic. They were still hopeful.

Despite her speech though, Levi was not convinced. “Hange wait…”

* * *

Levi couldn’t wait.

In fact, he was sure if it had been logistically possible, he would have fucked off to the other side of the world already to see her.

Ticket prices were expensive as well as volatile. And many times, he found himself regretting not buying on certain occasions. Work holidays weren’t flexible either and the few times he did have a holiday long enough to see her, the ticket prices were too ridiculous to have ever justified the cost.

Hange though, the Hange on the screen of his phone, the Hange that kept him company through frequent messages had made the wait bearable.

She kept him company but despite the efforts to feel intimacy in such activities, Levi felt the distance as well.

When he was awake, she was asleep. When she was asleep, he was awake. Ever since they met, his phone had had two clocks. Eventually, he did get used to the time difference and could easily count it in seconds. That thing called daylight savings time though always threw him off,

She celebrated birthdays, holidays and milestones more than twelve hours before he did. And sometimes, with real life pulling them in many different directions at once, someone always had to throw their schedule out for the other.

 _Throwing my life away, for the person on the screen._ He admonished himself a few times.

But Hange wasn’t just words, she wasn’t just pixels. She was a life stocked up with ideas, dreams and desires. And she made sure he knew. Even without the scents, the luxury of human touch, she found a way to make it work.

And he followed suit.

Human touch differs by person. The way one holds a hand, the way one puts their arms over the other. Technology could never simulate human touch. But his dreams could. Every now and then, he was convinced dreams were the most innovative yet the most archaic things.

Technology could never replicate something as intimate as scent either.

But the boxes she would send a few times a month, carried scents. There were breezes that flowed free and would brush through him for a split second as he opened her packages. And they were that good and very intimate in-betweens, the smell of sweat a little too strong, the smell of soap a little too weak for Levi to have ever liked it if it were anyone else.

But it was Hange. It was the Hange from his dreams. Despite it all, he’d rummage through the packages, enjoying the scents that came along with it, scents that his dreams were quick to reassure him, were very much Hange.

Those moments unpacking them, yearning for her yet feeling her at the same time, he thought boxes were the most innovative things for preserving a semblance of a smell, for being able to reproduce such a scent that he could have only ever dreamt about.

He never liked stuffed toys, until he realized, even in a box that was sent 3 months ago, it preserved a remnant of a scent. He found the oversized hoodie she packed, a little too big even for him, and maybe the university logo had been a little too tacky. But it still smelled like her.

And when he wore it, he did feel her. And it carried him through late autumns, cold winters and early spring, year after year, until he managed to secure a long enough leave and a cheap enough plane ticket to justify seeing her.

It would be their first meeting. He could have counted it in days, but he preferred to count it in sleeps. Because when he was sleeping, time went conveniently faster.

One month, he only had to sleep thirty times. One week, he only had to sleep seven times. Three days, three more sleeps.

And the three more sleeps went by fast, just like how Levi liked it. There were shopping lists, to-do lists, and packing for a one month trip meant the nights leading up to the flight were spent neatly folding his clothes. A constant reminder that it was getting nearer.

Hange’s texts were getting more and more frequent and they were referring not to hypotheticals.

No more ifs. All whens. And plans were more concrete. _Where do you wanna eat? What do you wanna do?_

Even things as tedious as buying a sim card filled Levi with more excitement than necessary.

**Don’t buy a sim card yet. I’ll get you a cheaper one in the city.**

**Will you find me?**

**I’ll be in the airport three hours before your arrival. Just in case :-)**

Levi wore green (Just in case too.). He was in the airport three hours earlier. He was the first one in the luggage check in line. And for a good one hour, he was alone in the departure gate.

There were two plane rides and Levi made sure to take the red eye flight, just to take advantage still of the sleepiness to make time go conveniently faster again for him.

But, the flight was still long, the seats were narrow and stiff and Levi could never sleep for more than a few hours at a time. He attempted to read, but he never was able to imagine anything. The whirring of the plane was just a little too loud for his liking.

He watched a few movies but he soon realized that even the fastest paced movies were unbearably slow. He ended up finding consolation at least in the fact that, with the rewind bar under, he was reminded that time was still moving albeit in a sluggish pace.

The landing of the plane lasted an eternity and Levi found himself speculating that the landing had been a joke. Exiting the plane was slow. The immigration line was long.

And to top it all off, his luggage had been the last to get dropped on the carousel. It was as if the world saw into his heart and felt the need to play games with it.

Customs at least had been kind. And soon after he got his luggage, he opened up into the arrival gate. Much more crowded than he would have liked and Levi found himself doubting.

 _Will you find me? Will I notice you in this crowd?_ He knew how she looked like, he knew how she sounded like.

But people looked different in real life right? People sound different when you actually talk to them in person. That was his reality speaking to him then.

But the dreams spoke up too, loudly enough to quell the doubts inside him. Levi waited towards the center, nearest to the largest arrival gates. He opened his phone and scrolled up for reassurance.

**Will you find me?**

**I’ll be in the airport three hours before your arrival. Just in case :-)**

“Just trust her.” Levi muttered to himself.

The arrivals area was a conglomerate of reunions, some tearful, some too joyful. There were lots of screams, lots of hugging and lots of running. With every nameless person, Levi found himself a little envious while at the same time, wondering how his own meeting would play out. He had to admit though time was starting to move a little faster.

And an hour passed by in what could have been a few minutes. And then two hours.

“Didn’t she say she’d be here three hours before?”

An hour later, he bought a tourist sim and as he went through the mechanical movements of putting the sim into the phone and resetting his phone, the realist took over.

_She’s real right? She genuinely wants to see me right? She wouldn’t invite me all the way across the world just to ditch me right?_

No asshole like that could ever exist right? Not especially Hange. And Levi scolded himself for even expecting the worst from her.

He vacillated between texting and messaging those few moments staring at the blank screen as the phone booted up. Putting the number in was almost automatic, as if he had practiced it so many times before.

 **Where u**. He wondered if he should have put an introduction there. Would that scare her? Would that make him seem entitled?

A reply came only a few seconds later. **Where are YOU**.

Levi chose that moment to dial her number.

She answered even before the first ring had stopped. “I’m here in the arrival area! By the main entrance!”

 _Really?_ Levi scanned his surroundings for a mop of brown hair. There were a lot of brunettes around him, but none of them with hair as untamed as hers. “I’m at the main entrance too,” Levi said.

“Wait…”

There were a few crackles, a few distant voices and after a while, panicked screaming.

“What’s wrong?”

“Levi? What terminal are you?”

“Terminal 2.”

“Just wait there! I’m coming!

Levi never did figure out how far the terminals were from each other. But he was sure he had waited at least an half hour just watching the other flights go by. All the familiar faces from his own flight were long gone.

And she didn’t message much since the call. Her last message sent a mere few seconds after the call.

**Don't move! I'll look for you.**

He heard footsteps. But it shouldn’t have been anything new. The arrival section was just footsteps after all, quick ones, heavy ones, slow ones, light ones. Yet those particular strides and the cadence that accompanied them stood out like a sore thumb, were gripping enough for Levi to look up almost instinctively.

“I am so sorry...Let’s hurry! I just double parked the car on the side of the road.”

That wasn’t the first meeting he had expected or dreamt for the both of them. Even before Levi could manage a greeting to at least somewhat recover from that awkward first meeting, Hange had grabbed his luggage and his overnight bag and ran through the crowds as if they were her own.

Levi struggled to keep up with her strides. “Do you plan on running away with my luggage?” he asked as soon as Hange stopped to load his suitcase onto the backseat.

“It’s nice to finally meet you too Levi.” Hange said, putting one hand out in greeting.

“We’ve known each other for years.”

“But this is our first time meeting like this right?”

“We’re not business partners. We don’t need a handshake.”

Hange paused for a second looking deep in thought. “Maybe you’re right. But that first few minutes wasn’t the best first meeting either.”

As he thought back to that first few seconds though, he realized that somehow he did prefer it. The wait, the urgency and the mistake that had wasted a good three hours of both of their time was organic, unrehearsed and very much Hange.

Levi shook his head. “No need for any of that. I’m just glad to see you.”

* * *

“How’s your cousin Mikasa now?”

“She’s out with her boyfriend in the Swiss Alps. They got a good cabin there and they’ll be staying for the summer last time I heard.

“So you haven’t talked to her in a while?”

“Not since they left for Switzerland.”

“Maybe we should have planned something for longer than a month…’ Hange pouted “I’m kinda jealous that your younger cousin gets way more freedom than us.”

“Well, they’re still in college and her boyfriend's parents are filthy rich. I saved years for this trip.”

“I’ll make sure to visit too. Once I finish my dissertation I’ll be free and maybe I could stay at your place for a year or so, maybe find a research gig.”

“You’re bored of the plants here already?” Levi sneered.

“I wanna travel the world and just study as many plants as I can.”

“And you’re gonna leave Coffee here?”

“I’m not leaving my cat anywhere. He’s coming with me.”

Levi looked out the window to see the houses were smaller and farther apart from each other than he had remembered.

The view gradually transformed from quaint suburbia to rolling hills. The green was monotonous yet calming and eventually, the day long journey and the sporadic sleeping schedule caught up to him.

“The car ride is gonna be long so just take as long of a nap as you want.”

And before he was even aware of it, Levi had fallen into a deep sleep.

* * *

“In the next life… Do you think we’d recognize each other?”

Hange shrugged. “Probably not.”

“So how do you think we’ll find each other?”

“It doesn’t hurt to hope.”

“What if… we find each other but you can’t stand me and I can’t stand you… Like how we were when we first joined the survey corps.”

“But you don’t hate me now. Right?”

“You liked science, research, working, travelling. You dreamed of things much bigger… for Paradis and even for the world I just wanted to build my own tea shop. You’re messy. I’m clean. We’re gonna fight if we ever run into each other. We might end up hating each other… We might just be too different.”

Hange sighed. “I honestly feel like we’re more similar than we originally gave ourselves credit for.

“What makes you say that?”

“For one, people need to be a special type of ‘crazy’ to rise up the survey corps ranks. And also…” Hange’s tone softened and she looked at Levi, a gentle smile on her face. “You were an idiot just like me. Even when we were on the run from the Jaegerists, even when the whole world was against us, you held on to that same dream for world peace, up until the last moment.”

“The last moment?”

Hange grabbed Levi’s hand and pressed it to her chest. “That’s why you put your heart to my chest right? So we could do that salute together? You wanted to remind me then that I wasn’t alone.”

* * *

Ironically, it was when the car was at its slowest did Levi find it most difficult to fall back to sleep.

“We’re back in the city,” Hange said. “And I bought starbucks.”

“Starbucks? Of all things?” Levi asked. He was sure he had already told Hange enough times that he particularly hated that overpriced franchise.

“None of the other coffee places offered a drive thru option Levi and besides, I didn’t wanna wake you up.”

“Well, I’d rather not go back to sleep now. If I do, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“That’s why I got you coffee.” Hange propped a cup of coffee on the cup holder next to him. “Please don’t complain that it’s not tea.

“As long as you didn’t put honey on mine, I’m fine.”

“I know you like your coffee plain Levi. Just like your tea.” Hange took a sip of her own coffee and let out a slowed breath. “Now that you’re awake, keep me company. Tell me a story. The traffic isn’t moving and I’m going crazy.”

“What kind of story do you want?” Levi asked. He wondered what kind of story he could tell anyway, still shaking off the last few shackles of a deep sleep.

“Well since you just woke up… What did you dream of?”

“You.”

“Again?”

“And me.”

“So the both of us?”

“But it’s in my point of view, so of course I’d say you.”

Hange shook her head. “We’re a bunch of idiots. We meet over some online war strategy game, we start dreaming about each other and now we’re going on a one month vacation around the country.”

“You dreamed about me too?”

She nodded. “Probably even more than you…. And you know what, if you didn’t admit it first, I probably never would have admitted it either..”

The traffic lightened, and once again right out of the city center, the two found themselves in another small town.

“The one last town before mine,” Hange said before going silent, her eyes fixed on the road. Levi looked back out the window, getting lost in the lives of the pedestrians walking along the sidewalks of the small suburbs just outside the window.

In the comfortable silence, the two spoke. They spoke in a language only the two of them would have been able to understand. .

Even before Hange had entered the basement garage of her apartment building and pulled the car to a stop, they already came up with one silent agreement that only served to erase any doubts and any bouts of self consciousness between them.

“Somehow I feel...even before I met you, it has always been you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much Appreciated!
> 
> The fic was based from this song <3\. The lyrics are beautiful and even if you don't understand Tagalog, I highly recommend you do a quick search if you enjoyed the fic. (The Youtube video has subtitles though)
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3CKEzGPwnc


End file.
